We
remember all
or
none.
There
is no part way here,
no
victimizer
without
victims,
no
Ariel Castro without
No
Castro without Jocelyn Berry,
the
daughter of raped Amanda.
No
Castro without all the stories
of
Berry and DeJesus and Knight
determined to endure.
No
improbabilities here,
not
once the stories begin
and
grind their way to some end.
No
stories without all the stories,
without
knowing how Ariel Castro
became
himself, without the pain he caused,
the pain from which he came.
Pain with or without the courage to flee.
End with or without the will to turn
and
face the demons coming on.
About
Ariel Castro
there
is everything
and
nothing to say.
Who
will tell the story
of
how Castro got that way?
Who
will say how his life
was
truncated and tormented
and
tortured before he met
Figueroa
and Berry and DeJesus and Knight
and
used horror to change
the
arc of their lives?
Ah,
the sympathy we feel for Castro's victims,
the means by which we
hide
from the way we sent
Berry
and DeJesus and Knight
to
twisted therapy in Castro’s home.
Who
will remember
Berry
and Dejesus and Knight
on
their way to whatever happens next,
happens
after Castro has hung himself?
Who
remembers Grimilda Figueroa
and
her four children?
Who
remembers what we did
or
didn’t do to Trayvon Martin
before
George Zimmerman?
Remembers
that we sent Zimmerman to meet
Martin
on the street?
Who
remembers James Byrd dragged
behind
John King’s truck for miles?
Who
remembers Matthew Shepherd,
remembers
what we did?
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